Alternating unaccusatives and the distribution of roots

• Autores: María Cristina Cuervo
• Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 141, 2014, págs. 48-70
• Idioma: inglés
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• Dialnet Métricas: 5 Citas
• Resumen

  • This paper argues for two structural types of unaccusative constructions which systematically differ in semantic and morphosyntactic properties. Evidence is presented from alternating Spanish unaccusative verbs which have a reflexive se-variant and a se-less variant, such as caer(se) ‘fall’, salir(se) ‘come out/off’, morir(se) ‘die’, ir(se) ‘go/leave’.

    The analysis derives the contrasts between the se and the se-less variants from their syntactic event structure, and reveals a parallel with se-anticausatives and non-alternating se-less unaccusatives, respectively. The se-less variant is argued to be the poster case of unaccusative constructions in which the root expresses a manner of change/motion and the sole argument is introduced as a complement. Contrastingly, the se-variant corresponds to a reflexive inchoative configuration comprising two sub-events: an unspecified event of change embedding a resulting state, lexicalized by the root. The argument DP is licensed as the specifier/subject of the stative verb, and is also the undergoer of the change. The structural decomposition of se-unaccusatives into a change and a state captures the dual role of the argument DP, the presence of the reflexive clitic and the dyadic nature of the predicate without reference to an external argument or a transitive counterpart.

    These results provide new arguments against derivational approaches to the causative–inchoative alternation, extending the empirical and theoretical support for the view that the meaning of verbs is formed within a syntactic-event structure, crucially depending on the particular combination of the root with verbal-functional elements.